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Over time, a person holding a Shard will be shaped to the Shard's intent. This can, for example, turn a kind person like Ati into someone who just wants to destroy. However, Rayse was purportedly already an incredibly crafty, loathsome, and dangerous individual, even before picking up the power. A Shard's intent is mildly interpreted by its Vessel[8] (for example, the idea of Preservation could be interpreted in a number of ways, and the Shard's Vessel helps determine this), so Odium is probably being interpreted in the darkest, most dangerous way possible. Odium is a force of pure hatred which is held by a man who can--and will--use that power to the most terrible end.

Odium's ultimate goal is indeed terrible: he seeks to be the most powerful being in the cosmere. To this end, he kills other Shards (namely Aona, Skai[6], Uli Da[9], and Tanavast[10]).[11] But, instead of picking up those Shards (and becoming more and more powerful as he increases his Shard count), Rayse does not want to be unduly influenced from other Shard's intents.[12] He feels that Odium matches him perfectly. So, he Splinters the Shards he kills, preventing anyone taking up those Shards to challenge him.[6]

Odium intends to do this to every Shard and be the only Shard left, effectively making him unstoppable and giving him free rein in the entire cosmere. And, Odium appears to have no trouble with killing former acquaintances to progress his goals.

Ambition was the first Shard on Odium's "hit list", as he felt threatened by the Shard's Intent.[13] However, Odium was unable to locate her until after he Splintered Devotion and Dominion on Sel.[13]

Odium tends to attack two kinds of Shards- those that violated the original Vessels' pact to not settle on the same world (such as Dominion and Devotion) or those he feels would be a threat or challenge to confront (such as Ambition).[14]

He is willing to work with another Shard if he is in charge. He may have done this once.[15]

Odium currently has an alliance with a Cosmere power other than Bavadin.[16]

When Odium appears in Dalinar’s visions he tells Dalinar that he is not the shard Hate but rather of the shard of Passion. Odium claims to be the only Shard that can understand how humans think and feel. He tells Dalinar that Honor only cares that people obey their oaths and Cultivation only cares if things are grown regardless of whether they are good or bad, and that he is the only Shard that can feel.

While Odium’s true essence is too powerful to be seen, he generally appears to Dalinar as an old man with a wide, furrowed face and bone-white hair sweeping back from his head. He appears with thick mustaches with a hint of black in them blended into a short white beard. His skin and eyes look Shin and he wears a golden crown in his powdery hair.[17] To the singers, he appears as an ancient singer with gold and white marbled skin.[18] He carries a golden sceptre in both of these forms.

When Dalinar claims to have seen Odium, Odium shows Dalinar an enormous, all-encompassing flame. It is bright white and red. While it primarily emanates hatred, it also overwhelms Dalinar with human emotion, passion, and anger.

Please read carefully and note that this is not necessarily canonical.

Perhaps unique to known Shards, Odium has figured out a method to kill a Shard's Vessel without destroying himself. Compare this to Preservation, which in order to defeat Ruin, had to kill himself to do so. While that may be particular to Ruin and Preservation's circumstance of being perfect opposites, there is no evidence of Shard death aside from Ruin and Preservation, and Odium's power. While how Odium accomplishes this is a mystery, It is known to be very taxing and take a long time to recover from.

The first theory to explain this was that Odium was inherently more powerful as a Shard, and so he can simply overpower other Shards. This is not the case, however, since all Shards initially had the same power level.[19] It is possible that since Odium is unlikely to invest his power in granting to sentience (as Preservation did), Odium is now slightly more powerful than his opponents, but this still does not explain how Odium easily could defeat Aona and Skai's Shards, Devotion and Dominion.

Another explanation could be that potentially any Shard could figure out Odium's destructive methods, but lack the motivation compared to Odium's overpowering intent of hatred.

Odium's other known ability is his power to Splinter Shards. This appears to require the opponent's Vessel to already be dead before Odium can Splinter them. It is unclear if any Shard can Splinter Shards, or it is especially unique to Odium. It should be noted that Preservation tells Kelsier that Ruin seeks to splinter his power[20], implying that the power, or at least the will, to splinter a shard is not unique to Odium.

Unlike Ruin, Odium is unable to change text documents on Roshar.[21] This is due to him not having infused his essence into the world, like Ruin did at the creation of Scadrial.[22]

On Sel, Odium's influence is omnipresent: he Splintered Devotion and Dominion, the only Shards on that world. Seons and Skaze are both Splinters, so in a way, Odium caused their existence.

Odium's actions are more obvious on Roshar, his present location. Honor stated to Dalinar that Odium is the enemy,[10] and implied he is the cause of the Desolations and potentially the leader of the Voidbringers. So, Odium has been attacking societies on Roshar for over 4,500 years.[23] This ultimately culminated with Odium killing Tanavast and Splintering Honor, though the Vessel of the third Shard on Roshar, Cultivation, still lives. In the present, Odium brings about the threat of the Everstorm and the True Desolation.

Odium may be the cause of the Heralds being tormented after dying in the Desolations.

Odium has killed at least one other Shard[24], heavily implied to be the shard Ambition which was mortally wounded by Odium during a clash in space within the same solar system as Threnody[25].

Odium may be the one referred to as the Broken One. This quote mirrors how the voice in the storm talked to Kaladin and said "Odium reigns".[26] The "sixteen" surely indicates the sixteen Shards, and indeed there are three Shards on Roshar. However, it is peculiar that if three reigned, why is Odium (presumably one of the three) referred to so strangely as the "Broken One" here? It is possible to say that indeed Odium is one of the three mentioned rulers, and as to why he is called the Broken One, it can be said that while Odium ruled along with the other two Shards he was still solid and "whole" in the sense that he was of physical form. But as indicated by Wit he is more of a force than a living being so this Broken One status we can say is him becoming this force.

It has been theorized that Odium is much better at seeing into the future than Ruin was. It is postulated that a Shard's skill in seeing the future is directly related to their intent and the mindset it gives them. Under this theory, the reason Ruin was very bad at seeing the future is that he always desired to destroy immediately, and so, he was focused on the present much more than Preservation, who had to think much more long term to fulfill his intent.

Odium has shown much craftiness and planning, so he probably is significantly more adept at seeing the future than Ruin. It isn't clear in this theory just how good Odium is at future sight--it is entirely possible that Preservation and especially Cultivation are still superior to Odium in this regard. Still, if Odium is better at seeing the future than Ruin, that already makes Odium a much bigger threat than Ruin ever was.